I live in Sgt Bluff and have directtv, I will be adding an OTA to recieve local channels, do you have any suggestions for an OTA. I would cancel and switch to dishnetwork since they offer local channels but I have heard a lot of people complain about the pic quality and service

Do you currently have an HD receiver with DirecTV? If you have a HR20 or H20 you can just hook your OTA antenna up to the receiver and should be able to pull in the HD locals out of Sioux City. If you have an H21, HR21, HR22, or HR23 or even and R22 you would need to add an AM21 tuner sold by DirecTV to pull in the OTA signal ($50). The nice part is that DirecTV will provide your guide data and give you have the ability to record the locals OTA if you have a DVR. You might be required to have HD service, but I have heard of those with an R22 receiver (SD only) getting locals OTA. I am not sure if this is what you were asking, but it might help in any decision making you have to do.

Just wanted to see if anyone else if having issues with this channel still. My signal strength is in the 75 to 85% range, but I still continue to get a LOT of pixeling and artifacts when viewing most days. It this just KTTW great quality, or do I need to adjust my antenna (with my signal strength I would think it's fine). Anyone have any thoughts? The wife will be upset if it continues one American Idol starts!!

Thanks for the reply
I dont have a hdtv yet in the process, for now directv will just give me the basic satellite reciever which they say will accept an OTA and intergrate with the guide.
i was just wondering if anybody has any sugestions on OTA's

Just wanted to see if anyone else if having issues with this channel still. My signal strength is in the 75 to 85% range, but I still continue to get a LOT of pixeling and artifacts when viewing most days. It this just KTTW great quality, or do I need to adjust my antenna (with my signal strength I would think it's fine). Anyone have any thoughts? The wife will be upset if it continues one American Idol starts!!

Only insight I can provide is on Terminator on Monday, Fringe, and some football on Sunday as that is all I watch on FOX. I am getting none of what you are seeing. Almost sounds like you are getting a multipath issue. Like a strong signal is bouncing off something or trees.

I have similar problems with KELO and KSFY at times. Especially in high winds, which is an antenna swaying problem on my part.

Thanks for the reply
I dont have a hdtv yet in the process, for now directv will just give me the basic satellite reciever which they say will accept an OTA and intergrate with the guide.
i was just wondering if anybody has any sugestions on OTA's

To start with, see if you can borrow a cheap set top antenna from a friend. You may not have to spend more than $20 on a cheap indoor from where you are.

Do you know what model Directv receiver they are going to give you. I did not think a basic/non HD model had an OTA tuner.

For Sioux City digitals, yes there is a 9.2 (24x7 weather), 14.2 (TV Azteca) and 27.3. The 4.3 that is listed is a future possibility for KTIV. They have a contract with RTN (Retro TV) but the station doesn't yet have the equipment needed to carry the third sub channel. Last I heard, it was going to happen toward the end of next year.

For Sioux City digitals, yes there is a 9.2 (24x7 weather), 14.2 (TV Azteca) and 27.3. The 4.3 that is listed is a future possibility for KTIV. They have a contract with RTN (Retro TV) but the station doesn't yet have the equipment needed to carry the third sub channel. Last I heard, it was going to happen toward the end of next year.

Dave Madsen
formerly with KTIV

Dave,

I can see public channels adding all those subs, but is it really a good marketing decision for private enterprise. How many weather channels do I need? Do these extra subs produce enough revenue to justify them?

I guess adding programming like Retro TV may be of interest to their audience. That is the same programming 36.2 has here. But how many times can you watch Quincy or Airwolf? Now Magnum PI and The Rockford Files I can see.

I just hate the signal degredation. If you go to http://rabbitears.info/index.php
click on listing and look at the bitrate info I provided to Trip you can see that KMEG is now transmitting their HD channel at a lower bit rate that KELO. It was just the opposite prior to their adding the .2 sub.

Has anyone been able to pull in Nebraska PBS in Sioux Falls with some sort of deep fringe OTA set up? It looks like the closest antenna is in Norfolk, about 100-120 miles away.

According to what we have looked up we could pull SD, IA, MN PBS with a long range antenna but I can't find either a closer broadcast antenna for NE or a deep fringe that states it can get a signal from that far away.

We want to be able to get the multi channels from each state and NE happens to carry some content the others don't.

For Sioux City digitals, yes there is a 9.2 (24x7 weather), 14.2 (TV Azteca) and 27.3. The 4.3 that is listed is a future possibility for KTIV. They have a contract with RTN (Retro TV) but the station doesn't yet have the equipment needed to carry the third sub channel. Last I heard, it was going to happen toward the end of next year.

Dave Madsen
formerly with KTIV

Whether RTN survives to that point is in question.

The network, which is carried on QNI-owned station KWWL-DT 7.3 out here (QNI also owns KTIV), is off the air right now. It has been replaced with a full-screen message:

"As of 5:00 AM on January 4, 2009, Equity Media Holdings Corp's contract to service the Retro Television Network has expired. EMHC attempted to coordinate a seamless transition, but despite repeated attempts to communicate with [new RTN owner] Luken Communications representatives, it received no response."

Then again, it could be just a matter of too many folks on the "top floor" taking a five-day holiday weekend and things could be back to normal by Monday. Who knows?

Interestingly, with NBC Weather Plus also kaput, KWWL is running full-screen stills on two subchannels today. The full-screen on Weather Plus indicates that "This TV" is coming soon to that channel. That could be another option for 4.3 if RTN falls through.

Has anyone been able to pull in Nebraska PBS in Sioux Falls with some sort of deep fringe OTA set up? It looks like the closest antenna is in Norfolk, about 100-120 miles away.

According to what we have looked up we could pull SD, IA, MN PBS with a long range antenna but I can't find either a closer broadcast antenna for NE or a deep fringe that states it can get a signal from that far away.

We want to be able to get the multi channels from each state and NE happens to carry some content the others don't.

Are you talking about the main channel, .1 or the sub channels .2 and .3. SD PBS as of today appears to have the same programming that NE PBS does on the .2 and .3 subchannels. I am in south central SD (Colome) and get KTSD as well as KMNE Basset, NE. KMNE puts a very good signal up my way, though of course out of your range.

The network, which is carried on QNI-owned station KWWL-DT 7.3 out here (QNI also owns KTIV), is off the air right now. It has been replaced with a full-screen message:

"As of 5:00 AM on January 4, 2009, Equity Media Holdings Corp's contract to service the Retro Television Network has expired. EMHC attempted to coordinate a seamless transition, but despite repeated attempts to communicate with [new RTN owner] Luken Communications representatives, it received no response."

I have Midco and recently recieved a HDTV for Christmas (720p). The problem is that KELO-DT (along with UTV & WX Now) go on and off the air. I called a relative (the one that gave me the TV) who has the same model when I had the trouble. When he tuned to 11.1 he was able to get it, I was not. We both have cable.

The guy from the cable co. told me that it was "bleed-thru" and it was not them putting out the HD KELO on 11.1

To get to the point, was he (the tech at the cable company) feeding me a line or does midco really offer over-the-air HD content that is mapped to their proper channel numbers ?

To get to the point, was he (the tech at the cable company) feeding me a line or does midco really offer over-the-air HD content that is mapped to their proper channel numbers ?

I have Midco and I recently got a HDTV for the bedroom, I currently have a DVR connected to it, but when I first got it I connected straight cable to it and scanned for channels, I got the HD versions of the network channels along with the analog, I do believe they were mapped to the OTA channel numbers.

I think that Midco is intermittently turning on/off the local HD channels that are in the clear to entice people to get their boxes. If this is true it's a good reason to leave them and get something else. That's just my opinion though...

By "bleed through", does he mean your signal is too strong? I would ask them to fix the "bleed through" at your location and see what his response is. I had a friend who said he could not get KELO-HD on cable one night. They may also have been just having trouble.

I just saw a notice on KDLT that they are going all digital February 1st, so I guess we'll find out who still uses analog that day instead of the 17th. Maybe others are too and I haven't seen the notice.

Has anyone seen any HD on the PBS 2.1 channel? Since they switched, I've only seen the SD feed there. The signal looks to be HD though.

I don't think you will see any HD on .2 or .3, only on .1 only. Looks to me like they haven't quite got the switching down yet though. I was just watching KTSD Reliance and the .1 channel had a postage stamp picture but appeared to be in HD otherwise. Switched over to NE PBS out of Bassett and the same program was in full screen HD.

I was also looking at SD PBS program guide on the net. They were listing some programs on the .2 channel in HD. Apparently they need to work on that a little also. :-)

Has anyone seen any HD on the PBS 2.1 channel? Since they switched, I've only seen the SD feed there. The signal looks to be HD though.

Just a reminder that these channels are Digital, which does not necessarily mean they have HD programming. Since each channel send something like 19 Mbit/s of bandwidth, when they separate their channels into sub-channels they are splitting that bandwidth. This would make it hard to broadcast good quality HD on 2 channels. It could be done, but will not look very good. The lower sub-channels (.2, .3, etc..) will most likely always have SD content.

By "bleed through", does he mean your signal is too strong? I would ask them to fix the "bleed through" at your location and see what his response is. I had a friend who said he could not get KELO-HD on cable one night. They may also have been just having trouble.

BVFAN

This tech from midco was essentially telling me that Over-The-Air signals were "bleeding thru"

If a OTA channel and a cable channel are the same (on analog) you get bars and interference. That's why in Brandon & Sioux Falls Channels 11 & 13 are blocked off. Also in Beresford Channel 2 (SDPB) can be seen with a little snow if you have cable hooked up.

But with DTV there is not that much room for interference, so I HIGHLY doubt this door-knob was correct

I live in Pipestone Minnesota and get all of the Sioux Falls digital channels except the digital versions of channel 36 (the CW) . I've seen in this forum that the digital channel for 36.1 is actually 51. I've tried that with no luck. Is there another digital channel for 36.2? Will this television station be increasing its power after February 17, 2009? If not, will they continue to broadcast in analog? I do receive pretty good analog reception of channel 36. Thanks for any information.

The signal is at very low power at the moment. After the transition, but not on the day of the transition, KWSD will return to channel 36 and boost power a lot (from 4.1 kW to 400 kW, while gaining 70 feet in height as well). Be patient and it will come to you.